The FP Interview

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'[Our dad] had so much special effects equipment and random props that he's gotten from movies over the years, we just kind of compiled this Mad Max world.'

The tagline for the new cult film The FP reads, “An ancient game becomes a deadly sport,” a reworking from the classic Van Damme movie Bloodsport. However, if The FP’s cowriter, codirector and star Jason Trost had his way, the tagline would instead be “Three Drinks Minimum.” That’s what Jason insists is required from the audience in order to truly enjoy this loony, post-apocalyptic farce. “You can’t give this movie to a mainstream audience.”

Jason stars as a futuristic thug who battles for territory not with his fists but through a video game called Beat Beat Revolution, which is like a cross between Def Jam Vendetta and Dance Dance Revolution. The FP has already found appreciative (and intoxicated) audiences at midnight screenings and festivals like SXSW and Fantasia, primarily because they know what to expect: a psychedelic love letter to '80s movies (check out the “gnarly” hairstyles) and a goofy satire on life in the sticks.

Much of the inspiration for the film comes from the neighborhood where Trost grew up, Frazier Park (the titular FP), a disconnected mountain community about an hour away from Los Angeles. According to Jason, The FP is filled with predominantly white kids who emulate crazy thugs with a penchant for surreal smack-talking that makes little to no sense. Jason made sure to incorporate this verbosity into his movie.

“We’re just a bunch of white dorks,” says Jason. “Because we watch Bad Boys we think we can talk like this. They don’t know how to really talk like (thugs). They just make up their own ghetto slang to be cool. It’s this weird subculture with their weird language.”

Getting that subculture onscreen, with a plot about gangsters two-stepping their way through a video game, was no easy task for Jason and his brother Brandon Trost, who serves as codirector, cowriter and cinematographer. The FP is not exactly an easy sell, which the Trost brothers learned when trying to find financing.

“Seeing the movie is weird enough,” says Jason. “Imagine reading all that sh*t on the page and trying to explain it to somebody. That’s always been the challenge. It’s Karate Kid meets 8 Mile or something.”

The Trost brothers and their producers managed to get just enough financing to make The FP for cheap. They even managed to collect some convenient family and friend discounts in essential areas. The cast is all friends of the brothers. Their sister, Sarah Trost (a contender on Project Runway) is a professional costume designer. Meanwhile, their father, Ron Trost, has been working in visual effects on Hollywood productions since the '80s (the boys were regulars on his sets).

“That’s part of the reason that movie has the look that it does with the post-apocalyptic feel,” says Jason. “He had so much special effects equipment and random props that he’s gotten from movies over the years, we just kind of compiled this Mad Max world. We lived on a ranch that looks like Mad Max so it wasn’t really that hard.”

Meanwhile, Brandon (cowriter/director, remember) is a regular cinematographer on movies like MacGruber and the recent Ghost Rider, experience that makes him a steady hand behind the camera. The Trost family is pretty much an in-house production company that can give a minor budget the Hollywood-grade treatment, which believe it or not, works in The FP’s favor.

“We wanted to have heightened production values,” says Jason. “If we take the joke that serious, it doesn’t make it a real movie, it just makes it that much more bizarre.”

The FP opens in select theaters this Friday. You can demand it in your neighborhood by visiting Tugg.com.